Arapaima from Amazon @ Singapore River Safari

I found these while going through my photos. I had visited Singapore River Safari back in January 2016 with my brother and grandma. Shown above is the highlight of the semi-indoor park – ‘Amazon Flooded Forest’. I am standing next to a gigantic fish known as Arapaima, native to Amazon and Essquilo basins of South America. This one is considered small as some can reach 3 meters and claim to be world’s largest freshwater fish. While Arapaima are not categorized by IUCN, it is believed that population declined due to overfishing (yes, they are food fish) and habitat loss.

My little bro posing in front of Manatee, a.k.a. sea cow because they are also large mammals that graze on water plants in tropical seas. As seen above, it has a large, horizontal, paddle-shaped tail with only one lobe, which moves up and down when the animal swims. Dugongs, often confused as Manatees, have tail flukes with pointed projections, like a whale with a slightly concave trailing edge. Manatees inhabit the shallow, marshy coastal areas and rivers and can be found in the Caribbean Sea, Gulf of Mexico, Amazon basin (Amazonian manatee is shown above), and West Africa.